Real Life/Fake World

The prettiness behind My Ugly Mouth.

Emotionally I am a wreck, as in I am literally, at most times generally, an Emotional Wreck. For the average person, this is a state of being. For me, a less-than-average person, it is an identity. 

Nicholas Pilapil: Filipino American, he/him/his, Emotional Wreck.

The proof is in the Zodiac! I am a Cancer. Famously hyper-emotional, temperamental, and spiteful. Unless you're into obsessive devotion and being with a guy who will let you fuck him in any hole, don't ever let me fall in love with you because my loyalty is unhealthy. The proof is also in my prescriptions. I have a longstanding dependency on mood stabilizers and anti-depressants because I am Bipolar. So, my emotional wreckage is more than Hannah Horvath quirky; it's Bree Van De Camp chic!

Honestly, I am probably the sitcom star of a bipolar episode right now. How else can I explain making a spur-of-the-moment Substack today—complete with an entire branding identity (my logo is kinda really cute, though, right?).

From a reader's perspective, it may seem like, "Oh, she's just being Miley." A playwright makes a Substack after the closing of his play. Seemingly, an out-of-work writer with nothing to do finds an outlet to do what he does. But, wait a minute bitch, let's unpack that sentence:

A playwright writer who loves attention makes a Substack after the closing of his play the thing that gave him constant attention ends. 

I've spent the last six months immersed in the world of my play, The Bottoming Process. From holed-up rewriting sessions in cold public libraries where I trapped myself next to Asian nerds doing homework and unhoused men napping between the DVD rentals and the large font fiction to the tortuous workshops with REDACTED, a D-list white actor, who tried to get me to rewrite the play because he's a self-hating fag who thought my commentary on white supremacy was too harsh to the rehearsals in the dingy black box theatre to opening the show to rave—and racist—reviews. The last six months have been chaotic. 

IAMA Theatre Company's The Bottoming Process. Photos by Jeff Lorch.

But I am a Lisa Rinna apologist and a connoisseur of multiple Real Housewives franchises—I live for chaos. I love watching chaos, feeding into turmoil, and how my personal chaos keeps my Emotional Wreck at bay. Chaos and turmoil keep me occupied and distracted. Disarray triggers a survival and crisis mode in me, giving me the strength to make it through almost anything. Unrelenting stress is a holistic mood stabilizer in that way. 

It's like being on a rollercoaster. Sure, there's whiplash here and there, steep highs and free-falling lows, and at times you can't help but scream to feel release. But rollercoasters come with seat belts and safety bars to keep you from flying off the handle. The real real-life shit happens when you get off the ride and no longer have something to keep you from falling apart.

And that is the case here—or so I think. My mind no longer has the fuel of chaos, so it's looking for stimuli to consume it and keep it occupied. This is possibly why I spent hours in the middle of my nine-to-five survival job to create My Ugly Mouth and write this essay on why I decided to make My Ugly Mouth. It's typical behavior of a Bipolar to act out in this way.

I call it my "Obsessions of the Week!" Because one of the symptoms of bipolar disorder is literally "Obsessive Thinking." We have bursts of obsessions and racing thoughts like a hamster wheel. And it manifests in an in-and-out hunt of being mentally occupied with problems and worries—or in my case, most of the time: THINGS!

An excerpt from my autobiographical solo show My Dog Died; and Other Concerns, where the character plays “Nick’s Obsessions of the Week.”

There is a high likelihood that this Substack will probably be dead in seven days.

The main character in The Bottoming Process is a Filipino American writer named Milo Santos. And for about three years, I unconvincingly lied to everyone that Milo wasn't based on myself. Milo is deeply insecure, desperate to be accepted, and he yearns for nothing more than to be worthy enough to be loved. Yet, Milo is too cowardly to do anything to find the remedy and too damaged to realize that he is worthy. Like, gross; why would I admit to that?

But after spending 2023 closer to the character than I've ever been before, it got more challenging to try and hide from the fact that Milo isn't just based on me. The truth is that I am just Milo. The most significant difference between us is that I write plays, and Milo writes essays.

Watching the play every night, and seeing Milo's story unfold, felt tortuous at times. I disguise The Bottoming Process as a romantic comedy, but the play is actually just a tragedy in clown drag. It became ugly watching my avatar have his heart broken nightly. Then it became heartbreaking to see that version of myself lose his identity in a bad romance. Although what hurt me the most didn't stem from the theatrics of the drama playing out underneath the stage lights. My discomfort stemmed from Milo's happy ending.

Milo, in the final moments of The Bottoming Process, says:

“But I am no longer in debt. I no longer allow it.
My choice, my narrative.
I put the pieces of myself back together. 
I unlearned you.”

Cue: Blackout. Cue: Thunderous applause. Cue: Milo's triumph.

It feels stupid to be jealous of a fictional character entirely based on myself. But I am fucking jealous of that dumb little bitch, Milo Santos. I am jealous that he finds his strength when I have not found my own and that he learns to love himself when I am still best friends with my inner saboteur. I need to take a page out of Milo's book. I need to unlearn—me.

It's like I'm in an incestuous circle jerk with myself: me analyzing myself using a version of me to teach myself how to be a better me. But that's my best option for self-analysis because despite being a raging Bipolar, I stopped going to therapy years ago (another story for another time). Perhaps this masturbatory circle jerk of mine can be considered more of an ouroboros? The self-eating snake that symbolizes rebirth.

Alyssa Milano from “Charmed” with her ouroboros tattoo.

I want to be like Milo. I want to unlearn toxic people, behavior, and thinking and learn how to eventually come out on top too. This Substack may very well be a product of a bipolar manic episode and be an "Obsession of the Week." But, if it's not, I will start my unlearning with My Ugly Mouth.

Writing fiction is to create drama. Wittingly crafting ugliness, purposefully exaggerating the truth, playing God to a fake world. Everything I know as a playwright is this. On the other hand, what Milo knows is the opposite. Writing creative non-fiction is to create factual narratives. A personal essay is rooted in a writer's intimate thoughts and experiences. In an essay, instead of exaggerating the truth, the purpose is to examine it. 

Since I was a kid, my nose was always in a book, hiding in it like a crab in its shell (Hello, Cancer sign!). What I know, I know from the fiction of books and plays. But sometimes, they lie. They make things uglier. And, so, with My Ugly Mouth, I hope to come out of my shell, face more of my truth, and maybe even write something pretty. 

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